Let Every Man Learn His Duty

It has been 8 years since I had a calling. Partly from availability issues; working on Sunday, camping with non-LDS scouts on Sunday, going to some meetings at other churches with family members who belong to them. Partly from growing inflexibility of an over correlated church. And of course, partly because of my own outspoken obnoxious attitude.

Our ward was divided 3 years ago but the youth are so few that the youth programs are still together. I live near the boundary and attend whichever meetings are most convenient and easily pass as a flaky member of either ward. One bishop is a good friend, the other where I am officially assigned appears to be afraid of me (after a power play he lost- another story) and hasn’t spoken to me more than a sentence a year in a more than the decade since then. The friend bishop told me the scoutmaster is burned out and asked me to work with the scouts. It has taken several months for him to get the other (my official) bishop to issue the actual calling which he finally did in one sentence (Hey, is it true you want to work with the scouts? Fine by me.) while walking down the hall between meetings.

I went to a stake scouting meeting and that was an eye-opener. Incredible problems abound in this stake unheard of in the non-LDS troop. I see them as a direct result of our unique policies and practices. I said nothing, being new. Our scoutmaster was not there. I sent emails and made phone calls to the scout master and YMP and they have not answered any of them. I missed two Sunday’s worth of meetings in a row for the usual reasons. Unexpected demands for two Wednesday nights in a row kept me at work until 9:00 pm. As if God or the devil is preventing me from doing this but I can’t tell which.

Last week I finally made it to the church on Wednesday night. I felt a sense of apprehension and excitement at the prospects. I had in mind a possible camping trip and maybe some activities to teach scouting skills if I was unexpectedly called into service. (Be prepared). The place looked abandoned, only 2 cars in the parking lot and another driving up at the same time as I to make it 4 cars. The other car was driven by a bishopric counselor and he looked at me in my well-worn scout shirt like I am crazy and asked what I am doing there. The door was locked and two women about age 25 were chatting in the foyer and they let us in.

I asked the two women if they have seen any scouts. They said no, but the joint activity was that night and it began an hour before at 6:00 pm. The young men had gone somewhere, to a dissection at a cadaver lab. None of the few young women in the ward showed up so these two YW leaders were just chatting in the foyer for a few minutes while their husbands had their young children for the evening.

I alone was surprised at the activity, and asked if they thought that was an appropriate activity for youth? Don’t they do dissections on bodies that are naked? Do you think it would be an acceptable church youth activity for young men to look at naked dead women and young women to look at naked dead men and then watch them get cut up? I presume this is not exactly covered in the handbook, but…

They looked completely clueless and turned to the bishop’s counselor who was still standing there listening to me. They seemed entirely incapable of forming an opinion of their own contrary to whatever the church was doing. The counselor said the activity had been approved and therefore he didn’t see a problem with it. They nodded complacently. I said that if my children were still teenagers I would see a huge problem with it as a parent. He fumbled around in his digital device for a number for me to call to voice my complaint and then informed us that according to his notes the activity was being conducted by a Dr. K., an orthopedic surgeon in the ward. I surmised that perhaps they were only going to look at cadaver joints; knees and ankles and such. Maybe a hand or foot. Those ortho guys have little interest in internal organs or the “organs of regeneration.”

Another middle-aged, overweight, not-well-dressed woman who appeared to be distressed showed up and the counselor soon disappeared with her into a room. I smiled and said a polite hello and briefly introduced myself to her but the other two women completely ignored her.

I was about to leave but thought to maybe stay another minute to chat and become better acquainted with the two young women leaders since scouts are prone to causing mischief with young women and we might have to discuss these sorts of problems in the future and the evening’s venture would not be a complete waste.

They were both BYU grads, daughters of church leaders, (area authority president and mission president) and seemed about as devoted as possible. They did not ask me one question; nothing about my callings or family or anything that might be designed to determine if I was up to any good even though they had never met me or seen me at church. I could have been released from prison the day before and willing to talk about it and they would have never known. I was not accustomed to this level of being deferred to and trusted by adult women.

They discussed briefly between themselves how to reactivate one of the girls. But they didn’t seem to see the connection between an activity that not one girl wanted to attend and a girl who didn’t want to attend one activity. My idea that the YW program could be modified to attract the youth to it instead of trying to modify the youth to attend a program seemed to be a crazy or radical to them. The idea of making it attractive to non-LDS girls was unthinkable and irrelevant and dismissed immediately.

A teenage girl showed up in a car in a rush. I vaguely knew about her mother. The mother had recently married and taken on the responsibility of helping to raise 4 of his small children, according to her most recent testimony on Fast Sunday. She had been a single parent from age 15 and partially dependent on the church for both financial and emotional support, but I had forgotten her name. The now nearly grown daughter didn’t recognize me and informed the young women leaders that she was there to see the bishop. She looked close to tears and I surmised a likely conflict of some sort with her new mixed family or less likely some variation of the same problem her mother had at that age. But I could be wrong.

My official bishop breezed in efficiently and took her to his office with scarcely a word to the rest of us. I stayed a few more minutes chatting and soon found myself astonishing the two women with tales of my mission days when we were not on as tight of a leash as they are now. A time when we did not fear our mission president because we knew he cared about us like a doting uncle and he would not send us home in disgrace except for the most severe offenses wherein we essentially demanded to be sent home. They thought this a rather strange arrangement. Missionaries should fear their mission president to some extent, they relayed.

The counselor and middle-aged woman left and the rest of us decided it was time to go also. One of the young women leaders assured us that we had all been there long enough to get credit for it. Credit where, I thought.

As I drove away I realized that the bishop was about 30 minutes into an urgent conversation with this young woman and we were leaving him alone not only in his office but in the entire building. I mentioned this to my wife when I got home and she was concerned enough that she asked me why I didn’t at least stay in the foyer in case something did happen? I drove back to the church and the door was locked. But the two cars remained and a single light burned on in the bishop’s office. This about an hour into a private urgent conversation between a 16 year old girl and a nearly 60 year old man while alone together in a dark building. I left.

I had issues with this practice of bishops interviewing youth alone over a decade ago. After years of conflict, I had been assured by current ward leaders many times that I got this one right and the church had changed; that the bishops were no longer interviewing youth alone. I am not in the mood to go tattling on a bishop and will probably just let this one ride. I can’t cure ebola either, not my problem any more.

My weak enthusiasm for this new calling is gone. I have done nothing and already I feel so done. Is this to be what I have to look forward to and seem pretty representative of the normal course of events on a typical Wednesday night at the ward house of a small ward these days?